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Glass. 
Book. 
Copyright^? 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



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THE ADMIRABLE BASHVILLE 

"Over Bashville the footman I howled with derision 
and delight. I dote on Bashville : I could read of him 
for ever : de Bashville je suis le fervent : there is only 
one Bashville ; and I am his devoted slave : Bashville 
est magnifique ; mais il n'est guere possible." 

Eobekt Louis Stevenson* 



' 



/ 



THE ADMIRABLE BASHVILLE 
Or, Constancy Unrewarded ^ 
being the novel of cashel 
byron's profession done into a 
stage play in three acts and 
in blank verse • with a note 
on modern prizefighting • by 
bernard shaw „ 

t 




BRENTANO'S ■ NEW YORK 
MCMXIII 



cotew 2* 



TX 



PR53G3 

.Ass 

Oaoy 



This play has been publicly performed within the United Kingdom. It is 
entered at Stationers 1 Hall and The Library of Congress, U. S. A. 



Copyright, 1901, by Herbert S. Stone and Company 



Copyright, 1907, by Bernard Shaw 



All rights reserved 



J 

©CI.A361164^ 



PREFACE 

The Admirable Bashville is a product of the British 
law of copyright. As that law stands at present, the first 
person who patches up a stage version of a novel, how- 
ever worthless and absurd that version may be, and 
has it read by himself and a few confederates to another 
confederate who has paid for admission in a hall licensed 
for theatrical performances, secures the stage rights of 
that novel, even as against the author himself; and the 
author must buy him out before he can touch his own 
work for the purposes of the stage. 

A famous case in point is the drama of East Lynne, 
adapted from the late Mrs. Henry Wood's novel of 
that name. It was enormously popular, and is still 
the surest refuge of touring companies in distress. Many 
authors feel that Mrs. Henry Wood was hardly used in 
not getting any of the money which was plentifully made 
in this way through her story. To my mind, since her 
literary copyright probably brought her a fair wage 
for the work of writing the book, her real grievance was, 
first, that her name and credit were attached to a play 
with which she had nothing to do, and which may quite 
possibly have been to her a detestable travesty and profa- 
nation of her story; and second, that the authors of that 
play had the legal power to prevent her from having 
any version of her own performed, if she had wished to 
make one. 

There is only one way in which the author can pro- 
tect himself; and that is by making a version of his own 

5 



6 The Admirable Bashville 

and going through the same legal farce with it. But 
the legal farce involves the hire of a hall and the pay- 
ment of a fee of two guineas to the King's Reader of 
Plays. When I wrote Cashel Byron's Profession I had 
no guineas to spare, a common disability of young au- 
thors. What is equally common, I did not know the law. 
A reasonable man may guess a reasonable law, but no 
man can guess a foolish anomaly. Fortunately, by the 
time my book so suddenly revived in America I was aware 
of the danger, and in a position to protect myself by 
writing and performing The Admirable Bashville. The 
prudence of doing so was soon demonstrated; for ru- 
mors soon reached me of several American stage versions ; 
and one of these has actually been played in New York, 
with the boxing scenes under the management (so it is 
stated) of the eminent pugilist Mr. James J. Corbett. 
The New York press, in a somewhat derisive vein, con- 
veyed the impression that in this version Cashel Byron 
sought to interest the public rather as the last of the noble 
race of the Byrons of Dorsetshire than as his unromantic 
self; but in justice to a play which I never read, and an 
actor whom I never saw, and who honorably offered to 
treat me as if I had legal rights in the matter, I must not 
accept the newspaper evidence as conclusive. 

As I write these words, I am promised by the King 
in his speech to Parliament a new Copyright Bill. I 
believe it embodies, in our British fashion, the recom- 
mendations of the book publishers as to the concerns 
of the authors, and the notions of the musical publishers 
as to the concerns of the playwrights. As author and play- 
wright I am duly obliged to the Commission for saving 
me the trouble of speaking for myself, and to the wit- 



Preface 7 

nesses for speaking for me. But unless Parliament takes 
the opportunity of giving the authors of all printed works 
of fiction, whether dramatic or narrative, both playwright 
and copyright (as in America), such to be independent 
of any insertions or omissions of formulas about " all 
rights reserved " or the like, I am afraid the new Copy- 
right Bill will leave me with exactly the opinion both 
of the copyright law and the wisdom of Parliament I at 
present entertain. As a good Socialist I do not at all 
object to the limitation of my right of property in my 
own works to a comparatively brief period, followed by 
complete Communism: in fact, I cannot see why the 
same salutary limitation should not be applied to all 
property rights whatsoever; but a system which enables 
any alert sharper to acquire property rights in my stories 
as against myself and the rest of the community would, 
it seems to me, justify a rebellion if authors were numer- 
ous and warlike enough to make one. 

It may be asked why I have written The Admirable 
Bashville in blank verse. My answer is that I had but 
a week to write it in. Blank verse is so childishly easy 
and expeditious (hence, by the way, Shakespear's copious 
output), that by adopting it I was enabled to do within 
the week what would have cost me a month in prose. 

Besides, I am fond of blank verse. Not nineteenth 
century blank verse, of course, nor indeed, with a very 
few exceptions, any post-Shakespearean blank verse. 
Nay, not Shakespearean blank verse itself later than the 
histories. When an author can write the prose dialogue 
of the first scene in As You Like It, or Hamlet's col- 
loquies with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, there is really 
no excuse for The Seven Ages and " To be or not to be," 



8 The Admirable Bashville 

except the excuse of a haste that made great facility in- 
dispensable. I am quite sure that any one who is to 
recover the charm of blank verse must frankly go back 
to its beginnings and start a literary pre-Raphaelite 
Brotherhood. I like the melodious sing-song, the clear 
simple one-line and two-line sayings, and the occasional 
rhymed tags, like the half closes in an eighteenth cen- 
tury symphony, in Peele, Kyd, Greene, and the histories 
of Shakespear. How any one with music in him can 
turn from Henry VI., John, and the two Richards to such 
a mess of verse half developed into rhetorical prose as 
Cymbeline, is to me explicable only by the uncivil hypoth- 
esis that the artistic qualities in the Elizabethan drama 
do not exist for most of its critics ; so that they hang on 
to its purely prosaic content, and hypnotize themselves 
into absurd exaggerations of the value of that content. 
Even poets fall under the spell. Ben Jonson described 
Marlowe's line as " mighty " ! As well put Michael 
Angelo's epitaph on the tombstone of Paolo Uccello. 
No wonder Jonson's blank verse is the most horribly 
disagreeable product in literature, and indicates his most 
prosaic mood as surely as his shorter rhymed measures 
indicate his poetic mood. Marlowe never wrote a mighty 
line in his life : Cowper's single phrase, " Toll for the 
brave/' drowns all his mightinesses as Great Tom drowns 
a military band. But Marlowe took that very pleasant- 
sounding rigmarole of Peele and Greene, and added to 
its sunny daylight the insane splendors of night, and the 
cheap tragedy of crime. Because he had only a com- 
mon sort of brain, he was hopelessly beaten by Shake- 
spear; but he had a fine ear and a soaring spirit: in short, 
one does not forget " wanton Arethusa's azure arms M 



Preface 9 

and the like. But the pleasant-sounding rigmarole was 
the basis of the whole thing ; and as long as that rigmarole 
was practised frankly for the sake of its pleasantness, it 
was readable and speakable. It lasted until Shakespear 
did to it what Raphael did to Italian painting; that is, 
overcharged and burst it by making it the vehicle of a new 
order of thought, involving a mass of intellectual fer- 
ment and psychological research. The rigmarole could 
not stand the strain; and Shakespear's style ended in a 
chaos of half-shattered old forms, half-emancipated new 
ones, with occasional bursts of prose eloquence on the 
one hand, occasional delicious echoes of the rigmarole, 
mostly from Calibans and masque personages, on the 
other, with, alas ! a great deal of filling up with formu- 
lary blank verse which had no purpose except to save 
the author's time and thought. 

When a great man destroys an art form in this way, 
its ruins make palaces for the clever would-be great. 
After Michael Angelo and Raphael, Giulio Romano and 
the Carracci. After Marlowe and Shakespear, Chapman 
and the Police News poet Webster. Webster's specialty 
was blood: Chapman's, balderdash. Many of us by this 
time find it difficult to believe that pre-Ruskinite art 
criticism used to prostrate itself before the works of 
Domenichino and Guido, and to patronize the modest 
little beginnings of those who came between Cimabue and 
Masaccio. But we have only to look at our own current 
criticism of Elizabethan drama to satisfy ourselves that 
in an art which has not yet found its Ruskin or its pre- 
Raphaelite Brotherhood, the same folly in still academ- 
ically propagated. It is possible, and even usual, for 
men professing to have ears and a sense of poetry to 



10 The Admirable Bashville 

snub Peele and Greene and grovel before Fletcher and 
Webster — Fletcher! a facile blank verse penny-a-liner: 
Webster! a turgid paper cut-throat. The subject is one 
which I really cannot pursue without intemperance of 
language. The man who thinks The Duchess of Malfi 
better than David and Bethsabe is outside the pale, not 
merely of literature, but almost of humanity. 

Yet some of the worst of these post-Shakespearean 
duffers, from Jonson to Heywood, suddenly became poets 
when they turned from the big drum of pseudo-Shake- 
spearean drama to the pipe and tabor of the masque, 
exactly as Shakespear himself recovered the old charm 
of the rigmarole when he turned from Prospero to Ariel 
and Caliban. Cyril Tourneur and Heywood could cer- 
tainly have produced very pretty rigmarole plays if they 
had begun where Shakespear began, instead of trying 
to begin where he left off. Jonson and Beaumont would 
very likely have done themselves credit on the same terms : 
Marston would have had at least a chance. Massinger 
was in his right place, such as it was ; and one would not 
disturb the gentle Ford, who was never born to storm 
the footlights. Webster could have done no good any- 
how or anywhere: the man was a fool. And Chapman 
would always have been a blathering unreadable pedant, 
like Landor, in spite of his classical amateurship and 
respectable strenuosity of character. But with these ex- 
ceptions it may plausibly be held that if Marlowe and 
Shakespear could have been kept out of their way, the 
rest would have done well enough on the lines of Peele 
and Greene. However, they thought otherwise ; and now 
that their freethinking paganism, so dazzling to the 
pupils of Paley and the converts of Wesley, offers itself 



Preface 11 

in vain to the disciples of Darwin and Nietzsche, there 
is an end of them. And a good riddance, too. 

Accordingly, I have poetasted The Admirable Bash- 
ville in the rigmarole style. And lest the Webster wor- 
shippers should declare that there is not a single correct 
line in all my three acts, I have stolen or paraphrased 
a few from Marlowe and Shakespear (not to mention 
Henry Carey) ; so that if any man dares quote me de- 
risively, he shall do so in peril of inadvertently lighting 
on a purple patch from Hamlet or Faustus. 

I have also endeavored in this little play to prove 
that I am not the heartless creature some of my critics 
take me for. I have strictly observed the established 
laws of stage popularity and probability. I have sim- 
plified the character of the heroine, and summed up 
her sweetness in the one sacred word: Love. I have 
given consistency to the heroism of Cashel. I have paid 
to Morality, in the final scene, the tribute of poetic jus- 
tice. I have restored to Patriotism its usual place on 
the stage, and gracefully acknowledged The Throne as 
the fountain of social honor. I have paid particular at- 
tention to the construction of the play, which will be 
found equal in this respect to the best contemporary 
models. 

And I trust the result will be found satisfactory. 



The Admirable Bashville; or, Constancy 
Unrewarded 



ACT I 

A glade in Wiltstoken Park 

Enter Lydia 
Lydia. Ye leafy breasts and warm protecting wings 
Of mother trees that hatch our tender souls, 
And from the well of Nature in our hearts 
Thaw the intolerable inch of ice 
That bears the weight of all the stamping world. 
Hear ye me sing to solitude that I, 
/Xydia Carew, the owner of these lands, 
Albeit most rich, most learned, and most wise, 
Am yet most lonely. What are riches worth 
When wisdom with them comes to show the purse bearer 
That life remains unpurchasable ? Learning 
Learns but one lesson : doubt ! To excel all 
Is, to be lonely. Oh, ye busy birds, 
Engrossed with real needs, ye shameless trees 
With arms outspread in welcome of the sun, 
Your minds, bent singly to enlarge your lives, 
Have given you wings and raised your delicate heads 
High heavens above us crawlers. 

[A rook sets up a great cawing; and the other birds 
chatter loudly as a gust of wind sets the branches 
swaying. She makes as though she would shew them 
her sleeves. 

Lo, the leaves 
That hide my drooping boughs ! Mock me — poor maid !— 

13 



14 The Admirable Bashville 

Deride with joyous comfortable chatter 

These stolen feathers. Laugh at me, the clothed one. 

Laugh at the mind fed on foul air and books. 

Books ! Art ! And Culture ! Oh, I shall go mad. 

Give me a mate that never heard of these, 

A sylvan god, tree born in heart and sap; 

Or else, eternal maidhood be my hap. 

[Another gust of wind and bird-chatter. She sits on 
the mossy root of an oak and buries her face in her 
hands. Cashel Byron, in a white singlet and 
breeches, comes through the trees. 



I 



cashel. What's this? Whom have we here? A 



woman 



lydia [looking up]. Yes. 

cashel. You have no business here. I have. Away ! 
Women distract me. Hence! 

lydia. Bid you me hence? 

I am upon mine own ground. Who are you? 
I take you for a god, a sylvan god. 
This place is mine : I share it with the birds, 
The trees, the sylvan gods, the lovely company 
Of haunted solitudes. 

cashel. A sylvan god! 

A goat-eared image! Do your statues speak? 
Walk? heave the chest with breath? or like a feather 
Lift you — like this? [He sets her on her feet. 

lydia [panting]. You take away my breath! 
You're strong. Your hands off, please. Thank you. 
Farewell. 

cashel. Before you go: when shall we meet again? 

lydia. Why should we meet again? 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 15 

cashel. Who knows? We shall. 

That much I know by instinct. What's your name? 

lydia. Lydia Carew. 

cashel. Lydia's a pretty name. 

Where do you live? 

lydia. I' the castle. 

cashel [thunderstruck]. Do not say 

You are the lady of this great domain. 

lydia. I am. 

cashel. Accursed luck! I took you for 

The daughter of some farmer. Well, your pardon. 
I came too close: I looked too deep. Farewell. 

lydia. I pardon that. Now tell me who you are. 

cashel. Ask me not whence I come, nor what I am. 
You are the lady of the castle. I 
Have but this hard and blackened hand to live by. 

lydia. I have felt its strength and envied you. Your 
name ? 
I have told you mine. 

cashel. My name is Cashel Byron. 

lydia. I never heard the name; and yet you utter it 
As men announce a celebrated name. 
Forgive my ignorance. 

cashel. I bless it, Lydia. 

I have forgot your other name. 

lydia. Carew. 

Cashel's a pretty name, too. 

mellish [calling through the wood]. Coo-ee ! Byron! 

cashel. A thousand curses ! Oh, I beg you, go. 
This is a man you must not meet. 

mellish' [further off], Coo-ee ! 

lydia. He's losing us. What does he in my woods? 



16 The Admirable Bashville 

cashel. He is a part of what I am. What that is 
You must not know. It would end all between us. 
And yet there's no dishonor in't: your lawyer, 
Who let your lodge to me, will vouch me honest. 
I am ashamed to tell you what I am — 
At least, as yet. Some day, perhaps. 

mellish [nearer], Coo-ee! 

lydia. His voice is nearer. Fare you well, my tenant. 
When next your rent falls due, come to the castle. 
Pay me in person. Sir: your most obedient. 

[She curtsies and goes. 

cashel. Lives in this castle! Owns this park! A 
lady 
Marry a prizefighter ! Impossible. 
And yet the prizefighter must marry her. 

Enter Mellish 

Ensanguined swine, whelped by a doggish dam, 
Is this thy park, that thou, with voice obscene, 
Fillst it with yodeled yells, and screamst my name 
For all the world to know that Cashel Byron 
Is training here for combat. 

mellish. Swine you me? 

I've caught you, have I ? You have found a woman. 
Let her shew here again, I'll set the dog on her. 
I will. I say it. And my name's Bob Mellish. 

cashel. Change thy initial and be truly hight 
Hellish. As for thy dog, why dost thou keep one 
And bark thyself? Begone. 

mellish. I'll not begone. 

You shall come back with me and do your duty — 
Your duty to your backers, do you hear? 






or, Constancy Unrewarded 17 

You have not punched the bag this blessed day. 

cashel. The putrid bag engirdled by thy belt 
Invites my fist. 

mellish [weeping], Ingrate ! O wretched lot! 
Who would a trainer be? O Mellish, Mellish, 
Trainer of heroes, builder-up of brawn, 
Vicarious victor, thou createst champions 
That quickly turn thy tyrants. But beware: 
Without me thou art nothing. Disobey me, 
And all thy boasted strength shall fall from thee. 
With flaccid muscles and with failing breath 
Facing the fist of thy more faithful foe, 
I'll see thee on the grass cursing the day 
Thou didst forswear thy training. 

cashel. Noisome quack 

That canst not from thine own abhorrent visage 
Take one carbuncle, thou contaminat'st 
Even with thy presence my untainted blood 
Preach abstinence to rascals like thyself 
Rotten with surfeiting. Leave me in peace. 
This grove is sacred: thou profanest it. 
Hence ! I have business that concerns thee not. 

mellish. Ay, with your woman. You will lose your 
fight. 
Have you forgot your duty to your backers? 
Oh, what a sacred thing your duty is ! 
What makes a man but duty? Where were we 
Without our duty? Think of Nelson's words: 
England expects that every man 

cashel. Shall twaddle 

About his duty. Mellish: at no hour 
Can I regard thee wholly without loathing; 



18 The Admirable Bashville 

But when thou play'st the moralist, by Heaven, 
My soul flies to my fist, my fist to thee; 
And never did the Cyclops' hammer fall 
On Mars's armor — but enough of that. 
It does remind me of my mother. 

mellish. Ah, 

Byron, let it remind thee. Once I heard 
An old song: it ran thus. [He clears his throat.] Ahem, 
Ahem ! 

[Sings] — They say there is no other 

Can take the place of mother — 

I am out o' voice : forgive me ; but remember : 
Thy mother — were that sainted woman here — 
Would say, Obey thy trainer. 

cashel. Now, by Heaven, 

Some fate is pushing thee upon thy doom. 
Canst thou not hear thy sands as they run out? 
They thunder like an avalanche. Old man: 
Two things I hate, my duty and my mother. 
Why dost thou urge them both upon me now? 
Presume not on thine age and on thy nastiness. 
Vanish, and promptly. 

mellish. Can I leave thee here 

Thus thinly clad, exposed to vernal dews? 
Come back with me, my son, unto our lodge. 

cashel. Within this breast a fire is newly lit 
Whose glow shall sun the dew away, whose radiance 
Shall make the orb of night hang in the heavens 
Unnoticed, like a glow-worm at high noon. 

mellish. Ah me, ah me, where wilt thou spend the 
night ? 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 19 

cashel. Wiltstoken's windows wandering beneath, 
Wiltstoken's holy bell hearkening, 
Wiltstoken's lady loving breathlessly. 

mellish. The lady of the castle ! Thou art mad. 

cashel. 'Tis thou art mad to trifle in my path. 
Thwart me no more. Begone. 

mellish. My boy, my son, 

I'd give my heart's blood for thy happiness. 
Thwart thee, my son ! Air, no. I'll go with thee. 
I'll brave the dews. I'll sacrifice my sleep. 
I am old — no matter: ne'er shall it be said 
Mellish deserted thee. 

cashel. You resolute gods 

That will not spare this man, upon your knees 
Take the disparity twixt his age and mine. 
Now from the ring to the high j udgment seat 
I step at your behest. Bear you me witness 
This is not Victory, but Execution. 

[He solemnly projects his fist with colossal force 
against the waistcoat of Mellish who doubles up like 
a folded towel, and lies without sense or motion. 
And now the night is beautiful again. 

[The castle clock strikes the hour in the distance. 
Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! Hark! 

Hark! Hark! Hark! 
It strikes in poetry. 'Tis ten o'clock. 
Lydia : to thee ! 

[He steals off towards the castle. Mellish stirs and 
groans. 



20 The Admirable Bashville 

ACT II 

Scene I 

London. A room in Lydia's house 

Enter Lybia and Lucian 

lydia. Welcome, dear cousin, to my London house. 
Of late you have been chary of your visits. 

lucian. I have been greatly occupied of late. 
The minister to whom I act as scribe 
In Downing Street was born in Birmingham, 
And, like a thoroughbred commercial statesman, 
Splits his infinities, which I, poor slave, 
Must reunite, though all the time my heart 
Yearns for my gentle coz's company. 

lydia. Lucian : there is some other reason. Think ! 
Since England was a nation every mood 
Her scribes have prepositionally split; 
But thine avoidance dates from yestermonth. 

lucian. There is a man I like not haunts this house. 

lydia. Thou speak'st of Cashel Byron ? 

lucian. Aye, of him. 

Hast thou forgotten that eventful night 
When as we gathered were at Hoskyn House 
To hear a lecture by Herr Abendgasse, 
He placed a single finger on my chest, 
And I, ensorceled, would have sunk supine 
Had not a chair received my falling form. 

lydia. Pooh ! That was but by way of illustration. 

lucian. What right had he to illustrate his point 
Upon my person? Was I his assistant 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 21 

That he should try experiments on me 
As Simpson did on his with chloroform? 
Now, by the cannon balls of Galileo 
He hath unmanned me: all my nerve is gone. 
This very morning my official chief, 
Tapping with friendly forefinger this button, 
Levelled me like a thunderstricken elm 
Flat upon the Colonial Office floor. 

lydia. Fancies, coz. 

lucian. Fancies ! Fits ! the chief said fits ! 

Delirium tremens ! the chlorotic dance 
Of Vitus ! What could any one have thought ? 
Your ruffian friend hath ruined me. By Heaven, 
I tremble at a thumbnail. Give me drink. 

lydia. What ho, without there ! Bashville. 

bashville [without]. Coming, madam. 

Enter Bashville 

lydia. My cousin ails, Bashville. Procure some wet. 

{Exit Bashville. 

lucian. Some wet ! ! ! Where learnt you that atro- 
cious word? 
This is the language of a flower-girl. 

lydia. True. It is horrible. Said I "Some wet"? 
I meant, some drink. Why did I say " Some wet"? 
Am I ensorceled too ? " Some wet " ! Fie ! fie ! 
I feel as though some hateful thing had stained me. 
Oh, Lucian, how could I have said " Some wet "? 

lucian. The horrid conversation of this man 
Hath numbed thy once unfailing sense of fitness. 

lydia. Nay, he speaks very well: he's literate: 



22 The Admirable Bashville 

Shakespear he quotes unconsciously. 

lucian. And yet 

Anon he talks pure pothouse. 

Enter Bashville 

bashville. Sir: your potion. 

lucian. Thanks. [He drinks.] I am better. 

a newsboy [calling without]. Extra special Star! 
Result of the great fight ! Name of the winner ! 

lydia. Who calls so loud? 

bashville. The papers, madam. 

lydia. Why ? 

Hath ought momentous happened? 

bashville. Madam: yes. 

[He produces a newspaper. 
All England for these thrilling paragraphs 
A week has waited breathless. 

lydia. Read them us. 

bashville [reading], "At noon to-day, unknown to 
the police, 
Within a thousand miles of Wormwood Scrubbs, 
Th' Australian Champion and his challenger, 
The Flying Dutchman, formerly engaged 
I' the mercantile marine, fought to a finish. 
Lord Worthington, the well-known sporting peer 
Acted as referee/' 

lydia. Lord Worthington ! 

bashville. " The bold Ned Skene revisited the ropes 
To hold the bottle for his quondam novice; 
Whilst in the seaman's corner were assembled 
Professor Palmer and the Chelsea Snob. 
Mellish, whose epigastrium has been hurt, 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 23 

'Tis said, by accident at Wiltstoken, 

Looked none the worse in the Australian's corner. 

The Flying Dutchman wore the Union Jack: 

His colors freely sold amid the crowd; 

But Cashel's well-known spot of white on blue " 

lydia. Whose, did you say? 

bashville. Cashel's, my lady. 

lydia. Lucian: 

Your hand — a chair — 

bashville. Madam: you're ill. 

lydia. Proceed. 

What you have read I do not understand; 
Yet I will hear it through. Proceed. 

lucian. Proceed. 

bashville. " But Cashel's well-known spot of white 
on blue 
Was fairly rushed for. Time was called at twelve, 
When, with a smile of confidence upon 
His ocean-beaten mug — " 

lydia. His mug? 

lucian [explaining]. His face. 

bashville [continuing']. " The Dutchman came un- 
daunted to the scratch, 
But found the champion there already. Both 
Most heartily shook hands, amid the cheers 
Of their encouraged backers. Two to one 
Was offered on the Melbourne nonpareil; 
And soon, so fit the Flying Dutchman seemed, 
Found takers everywhere. No time was lost 
In getting to the business of the day. 
The Dutchman led at once, and seemed to land 
On Byron's dicebox; but the seaman's reach. 



24 The Admirable Bashville 

Too short for execution at long shots, 
Did not get fairly home upon the ivory; 
And Byron had the best of the exchange." 

lydia. I do not understand. What were they doing? 

lucian. Fighting with naked fists. 

lydia. Oh, horrible! 

I'll hear no more. Or stay: how did it end? 
Was Cashel hurt? 

lucian [to Bashville]. Skip to the final round. 

bashville. " Round Three: the rumors that had gone 
about 
Of a breakdown in Byron's recent training 
Seemed quite confirmed. Upon the call of time 
He rose, and, looking anything but cheerful, 
Proclaimed with every breath Bellows to Mend. 
At this point six to one was freely offered 
Upon the Dutchman; and Lord Worthington 
Plunged at this figure till he stood to lose 
A fortune should the Dutchman, as seemed certain, 
Take down the number of the Panley boy. 
The Dutchman, glutton as we know he is, 
Seemed this time likely to go hungry. Cashel 
Was clearly groggy as he slipped the sailor, 
Who, not to be denied, followed him up, 
Forcing the fighting mid tremendous cheers. " 

lydia. Oh stop — no more — or tell the worst at once. 
I'll be revenged. Bashville: call the police. 
This brutal sailor shall be made to know 
There's law in England. 

lucian. Do not interrupt him: 

Mine ears are thirsting. Finish, man. What next? 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 25 

bashville. " Forty to one, the Dutchman's friends 
exclaimed. 
Done, said Lord Worthington, who shewed himself 
A sportsman every inch. Barely the bet 
Was booked, when, at the reeling champion's jaw 
The sailor, bent on winning out of hand, 
Sent in his right. The issue seemed a cert, 
When Cashel, ducking smartly to his left, 
Cross-countered like a hundredweight of brick " 

lucian. Death and damnation! 

lydia. Oh, what does it mean? 

bashville. " The Dutchman went to grass, a beaten 
man." 

lydia. Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Oh, well done, 
Cashel! 

bashville. " A scene of indescribable excitement 
Ensued ; for it was now quite evident 
That Byron's grogginess had all along 
Been feigned to make the market for his backers. 
We trust this sample of colonial smartness 
Will not find imitators on this side. 
The losers settled up like gentlemen; 
But many felt that Byron shewed bad taste 
In taking old Ned Skene upon his back, 
And, with Bob Mellish tucked beneath his oxter, 
Sprinting a hundred yards to show the crowd 
The perfect pink of his condition " — [a knock], 

lydia [turning pale], Bashville 

Didst hear? A knock. 

bashville. . Madam: 'tis Byron's knock. 

Shall I - admit him ? 

lucian. Reeking from the ring! 



26 The Admirable Bashville 

Oh, monstrous! Say you're out. 

lydia. Send him away. 

I will not see the wretch. How dare he keep 
Secrets from me ? I'll punish him. Pray say 
I'm not at home. [Bashville turns to go.] Yet stay. 

I am afraid 
He will not come again. 

lucian. A consummation 

Devoutly to be wished by any lady. 
Pray, do you wish this man to come again? 

lydia. No, Lucian. He hath used me very ill. 
He should have told me. I will ne'er forgive him. 
Say, Not at home. 

bashville. Yes, madam. [Exit 

lydia. Stay — 

lucian [stopping her]. No, Lydia: 

You shall not countermand that proper order. 
Oh, would you cast the treasure of your mind, 
The thousands at your bank, and, above all, 
Your unassailable social position 
Before this soulless mass of beef and brawn? 

lydia. Nay, coz: you're prejudiced. 

cashel [without]. Liar and slave! 

lydia. What words were those? 

lucian. The man is drunk with slaughter. 

Enter Bashville running: he shuts the door and lochs it. 

bashville. Save yourselves: at the staircase foot the 
champion 
Sprawls on the mat, by trick of wrestler tripped ; 
But when he rises, woe betide us all ! 

lydia. Who bade you treat my visitor with violence? 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 27 

bashville. He would not take my answer ; thrust the 
door 
Back in my face; gave me the lie i' the throat; 
Averred he felt your presence in his bones. 
I said he should feel mine there too, and felled him; 
Then fled to bar your door. 

lydia. O lover's instinct! 

He felt my presence. Well, let him come in. 
We must not fail in courage with a fighter. 
Unlock the door. 

lucian. Stop. Like all women, Lydia, 

You have the courage of immunity. 
To strike you were against his code of honor; 
But me, above the belt, he may perform on 
T' th' height of his profession. Also Bashville. 

bashville. Think not of me, sir. Let him do his 
worst. 
Oh, if the valor of my heart could weigh 
The fatal difference twixt his weight and mine, 
A second battle should he do this day: 
Nay, though outmatched I be, let but my mistress 
Give me the word: instant I'll take him on 
Here — now — at catchweight. Better bite the carpet 
A man, than fly, a coward. 

lucian. Bravely said: 

I will assist you with the poker. 

lydia. No : 

I will not have him touched. Open the door. 

bashville. Destruction knocks thereat. I smile, and 
open. 

[Bashville opens the door. Dead silence. Cashel 
enters, in tears. A solemn pause. 



28 The Admirable Bashville 

cashel. You know my secret? 

lydia. Yes. 

cashel. And thereupon 

You bade your servant fling me from your door. 

lydia. I bade my servant say I was not here. 

cashel [to Bashville]. Why didst thou better thy 
instruction, man? 
Hadst thou but said, " She bade me tell thee this/' 
Thoudst burst my heart. I thank thee for thy mercy. 

lydia. OIlj Lucian, didst thou call him " drunk with 
slaughter " ? 
Canst thou refrain from weeping at his woe? 

cashel [to lucian]. The unwritten law that shields 
the amateur 
Against professional resentment, saves thee. 

coward, to traduce behind their backs 
Defenceless prizefighters ! 

lucian. Thou dost avow 

Thou art a prizefighter. 

cashel. It was my glory. 

1 had hoped to offer to my lady there 

My belts, my championships, my heaped-up stakes, 
My undefeated record; but I knew 
Behind their blaze a hateful secret lurked. 

lydia. Another secret? 

lucian. Is there worse to come? 

cashel. Know ye not then my mother is an actress? 

lucian. How horrible ! 

lydia. Nay, nay: how interesting! 

cashel. A thousand victories cannot wipe out 
That birthstain. Oh, my speech bewray eth it: 
My earliest lesson was the player's speech 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 29 

In Hamlet; and to this day I express myself 
More like a mobled queen than like a man 
Of flesh and blood. Well may your cousin sneer ! 
What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba ? 

lucian. Injurious upstart: if by Hecuba 
Thou pointest darkly at my lovely cousin, 
Know that she is to me, and I to her, 
What never canst thou be. I do defy thee; 
And maugre all the odds thy skill doth give, 
Outside I will await thee. 

lydia. I forbid 

Expressly any such duello. Bashville: 
The door. Put Mr. Webber in a hansom, 
And bid the driver hie to Downing Street. 
No answer: 'tis my will. 

[Exeunt Lucian and Bashville. 
And now, farewell. 
You must not come again, unless indeed 
You can some day look in my eyes and say: 
Lydia: my occupation's gone. 

cashel. Ah, no : 

It would remind you of my wretched mother. 

God, let me be natural a moment ! 
What other occupation can I try? 
What would you have me be? 

lydia. A gentleman. 

cashel. A gentleman! I, Cashel Byron, stoop 
To be the thing that bets on me ! the fool 

1 flatter at so many coins a lesson ! 

The screaming creature who beside the ring 
Gambles with basest wretches for my blood, 
And pays with money that he never earned! 



30 The Admirable Bashville 

Let me die broken hearted rather! 

lydia. But 

You need not be an idle gentleman. 
I call you one of Nature's gentlemen. 

cashel. That's the collection for the loser, Lydia. 
I am not wont to need it. When your friends 
Contest elections, and at foot o' th' poll 
Rue their presumption, 'tis their wont to claim 
A moral victory. In a sort they are 
Nature's M. P.s. I am not yet so threadbare 
As to accept these consolation stakes. 

lydia. You are offended with me. 

cashel. Yes, I am. 

I can put up with much; but — "Nature's gentleman"! 
I thank your ladyship of Lyons, but 
Must beg to be excused. 

lydia. But surely, surely, 

To be a prizefighter, and maul poor mariners 
With naked knuckles, is no work for you. 

cashel. Thou dost arraign the inattentive Fates 
That weave my thread of life in ruder patterns 
Than these that lie, antimacassarly, 
Asprent thy drawingroom. As well demand 
Why I at birth chose to begin my life 
A speechless babe, hairless, incontinent, 
Hobbling upon all fours, a nurse's nuisance? 
Or why I do propose to lose my strength, 
To blanch my hair, to let the gums recede 
Far up my yellowing teeth, and finally 
Lie down and moulder in a rotten grave? 
Only one thing more foolish could have been, 
And that was to be born, not man, but woman. 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 31 

This was thy folly, why rebuk'st thou mine? 

lydia. These are not things of choice. 

cashel. And did I choose 

My quick divining eye, my lightning hand, 
My springing muscle and untiring heart? 
Did I implant the instinct in the race 
That found a use for these, and said to me, 
Fight for us, and be fame and fortune thine? 

lydia. But there are other callings in the world. 

cashel. Go tell thy painters to turn stockbrokers, 
Thy poet friends to stoop o'er merchants' desks 
And pen prose records of the gains of greed. 
Tell bishops that religion is outworn, 
And that the Pampa to the horsebreaker 
Opes new careers. Bid the professor quit 
His fraudulent pedantries, and do i' the world 
The thing he would teach others. Then return 
To me and say: Cashel: they have obeyed; 
And on that pyre of sacrifice I, too? 
Will throw my championship. 

lydia. But 'tis so cruel. 

cashel. Is it so ? I have hardly noticed that, 
So cruel are all callings. Yet this hand, 
That many a two days' bruise hath ruthless given, 
Hath kept no dungeon locked for twenty years, 
Hath slain no sentient creature for my sport. 
I am too squeamish for your dainty world, 
That cowers behind the gallows and the lash, 
The world that robs the poor, and with their spoil 
Does what its tradesmen tell it. Oh, your ladies! 
Sealskinned and egret-feathered; all defiance 
To Nature; cowering if one say to them 



32 The Admirable Bashville 

" What will the servants think? " Your gentlemen! 

Your tailor-tyrannized visitors of whom 

Flutter of wing and singing in the wood 

Make chickenbutchers. And your medicine men ! 

Groping for cures in the tormented entrails 

Of friendly dogs. Pray have you asked all these 

To change their occupations? Find you mine 

So grimly crueller? I cannot breathe 

An air so petty and so poisonous. 

lydia. But find you not their manners very nice? 

cashel. To me, perfection. Oh, they condescend 
With a rare grace. Your duke, who condescends 
Almost to the whole world, misrlit for a Man 
Pass in the eyes of those who never saw 
The duke capped with a prince. See then, ye gods, 
The duke turn footman, and his eager dame 
Sink the great lady in the obsequious housemaid ! 
Oh, at such moments I could wish the Court 
Had but one breadbasket, that with my fist 
I could make all its windy vanity 
Gasp itself out on the gravel. Fare you well. 
I did not choose my calling ; but at least 
I can refrain from being a gentleman. 

lydia. You say farewell to me without a pang. 

cashel. My calling hath apprenticed me to pangs. 
This is a rib-bender; but I can bear it. 
It is a lonely thing to be a champion. 

lydia. It is a lonelier thing to be a woman. 

cashel. Be lonely then. Shall it be said of thee 
That for his brawn thou misalliance mad'st 
Wi' the Prince of Ruffians ? Never. Go thy ways ; 
Or, if thou hast nostalgia of the mud, 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 33 

Wed some bedogged wretch that on the slot 
Of gilded snobbery, ventre a terre, 
Will hunt through life with eager nose on earth 
And hang thee thick with diamonds. I am rich ; 
But all my gold was fought for with my hands. 

lydia. What dost thou mean by rich? 

cashel. There is a man, 

Hight Paradise, vaunted unconquerable, 
Hath dared to say he will be glad to hear from me. 
I have replied that none can hear from me 
Until a thousand solid pounds be staked. 
His friends have confidently found the money. 
Ere fall of leaf that money shall be mine; 
And then I shall possess ten thousand pounds. 
I had hoped to tempt thee with that monstrous sum. 

lydia. Thou silly Cashel, 'tis but a week's income. 
I did propose to give thee three times that 
For pocket money when we two were wed. 

cashel. Give me my hat. I have been fooling here. 
Now, by the Hebrew lawgiver, I thought 
That only in America such revenues 
Were decent deemed. Enough. My dream is dreamed. 
Your gold weighs like a mountain on my chest. 
Farewell. 

lydia. The golden mountain shall be thine 
The day thou quit'st thy horrible profession. 

cashel. Tempt me not, woman. It is honor calls. 
Slave to the Ring I rest until the face 
Of Paradise be changed. 

Enter Bashville 

bashville. Madam, your carriage, 

Ordered by you at two. 'Tis now half-past. 



34 The Admirable Bashville 

cashel. Sdeath! is it half-past two? The king! the 

king ! 
lydia. The king! What mean you? 
cashel. I must meet a monarch 

This very afternoon at Islington. 

lydia. At Islington ! You must be mad. 
cashel. A cab! 

Go call a cab ; and let a cab be called ; 
And let the man that calls it be thy footman. 

lydia. You are not well. You shall not go alone. 
My carriage waits. I must accompany you. 
I go to find my hat. [Exit 

cashel. Like Paracelsus, 

Who went to find his soul. [ To Bashville. ] And now, 

young man, 
How comes it that a fellow of your inches, 
So deft a wrestler and so bold a spirit, 
Can stoop to be a flunkey? Call on me 
On your next evening out. I'll make a man of you. 

Surely you are ambitious and aspire 

bashville. To be a butler and draw corks; where- 
fore, 
By Heaven, I will draw yours. 

[He hits Cashel on the nose, and runs out. 
Cashel [thoughtfully putting the side of his fore- 
finger to his nose, and studying the blood on it]. 
Too quick for me! 
There's money in this youth. 

Re-enter Lydia, hatted and gloved. 

lydia. O Heaven! you bleed. 

cashel. Lend me a key or other frigid object, 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 35 

That I may put it down my back, and staunch 
The welling life stream. 

lydia [giving him her keys]. Oh, what have you 
done ? 

cashel. Flush on the boko napped your footman's 
left. 

lydia. I do not understand. 

cashel. True. Pardon me. 

I have received a blow upon the nose 
In sport from Bashville. Next, ablution; else 
I shall be total gules. [He hurries out. 

lydia. How well he speaks ! 

There is a silver trumpet in his lips 
That stirs me to the finger ends. His nose 
Dropt lovely color: 'tis a perfect blood. 
I would 'twere mingled with mine own ! 

Enter Bashville 

What now? 

bashville. Madam, the coachman can no longer wait : 
The horses will take cold. 

lydia. I do beseech him 

A moment's grace. Oh, mockery of wealth ! 
The third class passenger unchidden rides 
Whither and when he will: obsequious trams 
Await him hourly: subterranean tubes 
With tireless coursers whisk him through the town; 
But we, the rich, are slaves to Houyhnhnms: 
We wait upon their colds, and frowst all day 
Indoors,' if they but cough or spurn their hay. 

bashville. Madam, an omnibus to Euston Koad^ 



36 The Admirable Bashville 

And thence t' th' Angel — 

Enter Cashel 

lydia. Let us haste, my love: 

The coachman is impatient. 

cashel. Did he guess 

He stays for Cashel Byron, he'd outwait 
Pompei's sentinel. Let us away. 
This day of deeds, as yet but half begun, 
Must ended be in merrie Islington. 

[Exeunt Lydia and Cashel. 

bashville. Gods ! how she hangs on's arm ! I am 
alone. 
Now let me lift the cover from my soul. 

wasted humbleness ! Deluded diffidence ! 
How often have I said, Lie down, poor footman; 
She'll never stoop to thee, rear as thou wilt 

Thy powder to the sky. And now, by Heaven, 
She stoops below me; condescends upon 
This hero of the pothouse, whose exploits, 
Writ in my character from my last place, 
Would damn me into ostlerdom. And yet 
There's an eternal justice in it; for 
By so much as the ne'er subdued Indian 
Excels the servile negro, doth this ruffian 
Precedence take of me. " Ich dien" Damnation! 

1 serve. My motto should have been, " I scalp." 
And yet I do not bear the yoke for gold. 
Because I love her I have blacked her boots; 
Because I love her I have cleaned her knives, 
Doing in this the office of a boy, 

Whilst, like the celebrated maid that milks 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 37 

And does the meanest chares, I've shared the passions 

Of Cleopatra. It has been my pride 

To give her place the greater altitude 

By lowering mine, and of her dignity 

To be so j ealous that my cheek has flamed 

Even at the thought of such a deep disgrace 

As love for such a one as I would be 

For such a one as she ; and now ! and now ! 

A prizefighter ! O irony ! O bathos ! 

To have made way for this ! Oh, Bashville, Bashville : 

Why hast thou thought so lowly of thyself, 

So heavenly high of her? Let what will come, 

My love must speak: 'twas my respect was dumb. 

Scene II 

The Agricultural Hall in Islington, crowded with specta- 
tors. In the arena a throne, with a boxing ring 
before it. A balcony above on the right, occupied 
by persons of fashion: among others, Lydia and 
Lord Worthington. 

Flourish. Enter Lucian and Cetewayo, with Chiefs in 
attendance. 

cetewayo. Is this the Hall of Husbandmen? 

lucian. It is. 

cetewayo. Are these anaemic dogs the English peo- 
ple? 

lucian. Mislike us not for our complexions, 
The pallid liveries of the pall of smoke 
Belched by the mighty chimneys of our factories, 
And by the million patent kitchen ranges 



38 The Admirable Bashville 

Of happy English homes. 

cetewayo. When first I came 

I deemed those chimneys the fuliginous altars 
Of some infernal god. I now perceive 
The English dare not look upon the sky. 
They are moles and owls : they call upon the soot 
To cover them. 

lucian. You cannot understand 

The greatness of this people, Cetewayo. 
You are a savage, reasoning like a child. 
Each pallid English face conceals a brain 
Whose powers are proven in the works of Newton 
And in the plays of the immortal Shakespear. 
There is not one of all the thousands here 
But, if you placed him naked in the desert, 
Woud presently construct a steam engine, 
And lay a cable t' th' Antipodes. 

cetewayo. Have I been brought a million miles by 
sea 
To learn how men can lie ! Know, Father Webber, 
Men become civilized through twin diseases, 
Terror and Greed to wit: these two conjoined 
Become the grisly parents of Invention. 
Why does the trembling white with frantic toil 
Of hand and brain produce the magic gun 
That slays a mile off, whilst the manly Zulu 
Dares look his foe V the face; fights foot to foot; 
Lives in the present; drains the Here and Now; 
Makes life a long reality, and death 
A moment only ! whilst your Englishman 
Glares on his burning candle's winding-sheets^ 
Counting the steps of his approaching doom. 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 39 

And in the murky corners ever sees 

Two horrid shadows, Death and Poverty: 

In the which anguish an unnatural edge 

Comes on his frighted brain, which straight devises 

Strange frauds by which to filch unearned gold, 

Mad crafts by which to slay unfaced foes, 

Until at last his agonized desire 

Makes possibility its slave. And then — 

Horrible climax! All-undoing spite! — 

Th' importunate clutching of the coward's hand 

From wearied Nature Devastation's secrets 

Doth wrest; when straight the brave black-livered man 

Is blown explosively from off the globe; 

And Death and Dread, with their white-livered slaves 

O'er-run the earth, and through their chattering teeth 

Stammer the words " Survival of the Fittest." 

Enough of this : I came not here to talk. 

Thou say'st thou hast two white-faced ones who dare 

Fight without guns, and spearless, to the death. 

Let them be brought. 

lucian. They fight not to the death, 

But under strictest rules: as, for example, 
Half of their persons shall not be attacked ; 
Nor shall they suffer blows when they fall down, 
Nor stroke of foot at any time. And, further, 
That frequent opportunities of rest 
With succor and refreshment be secured them. 

cetewayo. Ye gods, what cowards ! Zululand, my 
Zululand : 
Personified Pusillanimity 
Hath ta'en thee from the bravest of the brave ! 

lucian. Lo, the rude savage whose untutored mind 



40 The Admirable Bashville 

Cannot perceive self-evidence, and doubts 
That Brave and English mean the self-same thing! 
cetewayo. Well, well, produce these heroes. I sur- 
mise 
They will be carried by their nurses, lest 
Some barking dog or bumbling bee should scare them. 

Cetewayo takes his state. Enter Paradise 
lydia. What hateful wretch is this whose mighty 
thews 
Presage destruction to his adversaries? 
lord worthington. 'Tis Paradise, 
lydia. He of whom Cashel spoke ? 

A dreadful thought ices my heart. Oh, why 
Did Cashel leave us at the door? 

Enter Cashel 

LORD WORTHINGTON. Behold ! 

The champion comes. 

lydia. Oh, I could kiss him now, 

Here, before all the world. His boxing things 
Render him most attractive. But I fear 
Yon villain's fists may maul him. 

worthington. Have no fear. 

Hark! the king speaks. 

cetewayo. Ye sons of the white queen: 

Tell me your names and deeds, ere ye fall to. 

paradise. Your royal highness, you beholds a bloke 
What gets his living honest by his fists. 
I may not have the polish of some toffs 
As I could mention on; but up to now 
No man has took my number down. I scale 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 41 

Close on twelve stun; my age is twenty-three; 
And at Bill Richardson's Blue Anchor pub 
Am to be heard of any day by such 
As likes the job. I don't know, governor, 
As ennythink remains for me to say. 

cetewayo. Six wives and thirty oxen shalt thou have 
If on the sand thou leave thy foeman dead. 
Methinks he looks scornfully on thee. 
[To Cashel] Ha! dost thou not so? 

cashel. Sir, I do beseech you 

To name the bone, or limb, or special place 
Where you would have me hit him with this fist. 

cetewayo. Thou hast a noble brow ; but much I fear 
Thine adversary will disfigure it. 

cashel. There's a divinity that shapes our ends 
Rough hew them how we will. Give me the gloves. 

the master of the revels. Paradise, a professor. 
Cashel Byron, 
Also professor. Time! \Tlney spar. 

lydia. Eternity 

It seems to me until this fight be done. 

cashel. Dread monarch : this is called the upper cut, 
And this a hook-hit of mine own invention. 
The hollow region where I plant this blow 
Is called the mark. My left, you will observe, 
I chiefly use for long shots: with my right 
Aiming beside the angle of the jaw 
And landing with a certain delicate screw 
I without violence knock my foeman out. 
Mark how he falls forward upon his face! 
The rules allow ten seconds to get up; 
And as the man is still quite silly, I 



42 The Admirable Bashville 

Might safely finish him; but my respect 
For your most gracious majesty's desire 
To see some further triumphs of the science 
Of self-defence postpones awhile his doom. 

paradise. How can a bloke do hisself proper justice 
With pillows on his fists? 

[He tears off his gloves and attacks Cashel with his 
bare knuckles. 

the crowd. Unfair ! The rules ! 

cetewayo. The joy of battle surges boiling up 
And bids me join the mellay. Isandhlana 
And Victory! [He falls on the bystanders. 

the chiefs. Victory and Isandhlana ! 
[They run amok. General panic and stampede. The 
ring is swept away. 

lucian. Forbear these most irregular proceedings. 
Police ! Police ! 

[He engages Cetewayo with his umbrella. The bal- 
cony comes down with a crash. Screams from its 
occupants. Indescribable confusion. 

cashel [dragging Lydia from the struggling heap]. 
My love, my love, art hurt? 

lydia. No, no; but save my sore o'ermatched cousin. 

a policeman. Give us a lead, sir. Save the English 
flag. 
Africa tramples on it. 

cashel. Africa ! 

Not all the continents whose mighty shoulders 
The dancing diamonds of the seas bedeck 
Shall trample on the blue with spots of white. 
Now, Lydia, mark thy lover. [He charges the Zulus. 

lydia. Hercules 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 43 

Cannot withstand him. See: the king is down; 

The tallest chief is up, heels over head, 

Tossed corklike o'er my Cashel's sinewy back; 

And his lieutenant all deflated gasps 

For breath upon the sand. The others fly 

In vain: his fist o'er magic distances 

Like a chameleon's tongue shoots to its mark; 

And the last African upon his knees 

Sues piteously for quarter. [Rushing into Cashel's 

arms, ] Oh, my hero : 
Thou'st saved us all this day. 

cashel. 'Twas all for thee. 

cetewayo [trying to rise]. Have I been struck by 
lightning ? 

lucian. Sir, your conduct 

Can only be described as most ungentlemanly. 

policeman. One of the prone is white. 

cashel. 'Tis Paradise. 

policeman. He's choking: he has something in his 
mouth. 

lydia [to Cashel], Oh Heaven! there is blood upon 
your hip. 
You're hurt. 

cashel. The morsel in yon wretch's mouth 

Was bitten out of me. 

[Sensation. Lydia screams and swoons in Cashel's 
arms. 



44 The Admirable Bashville 

ACT III 
WUUtoken. A r00m fc ^ ^^ ^ 

LYDIA «* he r writing table 

7 tather was a very learned man. 
LJTT think J sha " oldmaided be 
^e I unlearn the thin gshe taught to me . 

Enter Policeman 

I'YDIA. 
POLICEMAN. Madim if ^ 

^ Madam, rt d oes . a „ d , ^ ^ .^ 

That what y „„ , erm , Wa , 

^~ Jits r?'^ *••"■■• 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 45 

Any bad characters this afternoon 
Has noted in the neighborhood. 

lydia. No, none, sir. 

I had not let my maid go forth to-day 
Thought I the roads unsafe. 

policeman. Fear nothing, madam: 

The force protects the fair. My mission here 
Is to wreak ultion for the broken law. 
I wish your ladyship good afternoon. 

lydia. Good afternoon. [Exit Policeman. 

A prizefight! O my heart! 
Cashel: hast thou deceived me? Can it be 
Thou hast backslidden to the hateful calling 
I asked thee to eschew ? 

O wretched maid, 
Why didst thou flee from London to this place 
To write thy father's life, whenas in town 
Thou might'st have kept a guardian eye on him — 
What's that? A flying footstep — 

Enter Cashel 

cashel. Sanctuary ! 

The law is on my track. What! Lydia here! 

lydia. Ay : Lydia here. Hast thou done murder, then, 
That in so horrible a guise thou comest? 

cashel. Murder! I would I had. Yon cannibal 
Hath forty thousand lives ; and I have ta'en 
But thousands thirty-nine. I tell thee, Lydia, 
On the impenetrable sarcolobe 

That holds his seedling brain these fists have pounded 
By Shrewsb'ry clock an hour. This bruised grass 
And caked mud adhering to my form 



46 The Admirable Bashville 

I have acquired in rolling on the sod 
Clinched in his grip. This scanty reefer coat 
For decency snatched up as fast I fled 
When the police arrived, belongs to Mellish. 
'Tis all too short; hence my display of rib 
And forearm mother-naked. Be not wroth 
Because I seem to wink at you: by Heaven, 
'Twas Paradise that plugged me in the eye 
Which I perforce keep closing. Pity me, 
My training wasted and my blows unpaid, 
Sans stakes, sans victory, sans everything 
I had hoped to win. Oh, I could sit me down 
And weep for bitterness. 

lydia. Thou wretch, begone. 

cashel. Begone ! 

lydia. I say begone. Oh, tiger's heart 

Wrapped in a young man's hide, canst thou not live 
In love with Nature and at peace with Man ? 
Must thou, although thy hands were never made 
To blacken others' eyes, still batter at 
The image of Divinity? I loathe thee. 
Hence from my house and never see me more. 

cashel. I go. The meanest lad on thy estate 
Would not betray me thus. But 'tis no matter. 

[He opens the door. 
Ha ! the police. I'm lost. [He shuts the door again. 

Now shalt thou see 
My last fight fought. Exhausted as I am, 
To capture me will cost the coppers dear. 
Come one, come all ! 

lydia. Oh, hide thee, I implore: 

I cannot see thee hunted down like this. 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 47 

There is my room. Conceal thyself therein. 

Quicks I command. [He goes into the room. 

With horror I foresee, 
Lydia, that never lied, must lie for thee. 

Enter Policeman, with Paradise and Mellish in 
custody, Bashville, constables, and others 

policeman. Keep back your bruised prisoner lest he 
shock 
This wellbred lady's nerves. Your pardon, ma'am; 
But have you seen by chance the other one? 
In this direction he was seen to run. 

lydia. A man came here anon with bloody hands 
And aspect that did turn my soul to snow. 

policeman. 'Twas he. What said he? 

lydia. Begged for sanctuary. 

I bade the man begone. 

policeman. Most properly. 

Saw you which way he went? 

lydia. I cannot tell. 

paradise. He seen me coming; and he done a bunk. 

policeman. Peace, there. Excuse his damaged fea- 
tures^ lady: 
He's Paradise; and this one's Byron's trainer, 
Mellish. 

mellish. Injurious copper, in thy teeth 
I hurl the lie. I am no trainer, I. 
My father, a respected missionary, 
Apprenticed me at fourteen years of age 
T' the poetry writing. To these woods I came 
With Nature to commune. My revery 
Was by a sound of blows rudely dispelled. 



48 The Admirable Bashville 

Mindful of what my sainted parent taught, 
I rushed to play the peacemaker, when lo ! 
These minions of the law laid hands on me. 

bashville. A lovely woman, with distracted cries, 
In most resplendent fashionable frock, 
Approaches like a wounded antelope. 

Enter Adelaide Gisborne 

Adelaide. Where is my Cashel? Hath he been ar- 
rested ? 

policeman. I would I had thy Cashel by the collar: 
He hath escaped me. 

Adelaide. Praises be for ever! 

lydia. Why dost thou call the missing man thy 
Cashel? 

Adelaide. He is mine only son. 

all. Thy son! 

Adelaide. My son. 

lydia. I thought his mother hardly would have known 
him, 
So crushed his countenance. 

Adelaide. A ribald peer, 

Lord Worthington by name, this morning came 
With honeyed words beseeching me to mount 
His four-in-hand, and to the country hie 
To see some English sport. Being by nature 
Frank as a child, I fell into the snare, 
But took so long to dress that the design 
Failed of its full effect; for not until 
The final round we reached the horrid scene. 
Be silent all ; for now I do approach 
My tragedy's catastrophe. Know, then, 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 49 

That Heaven did bless me with an only son> 
A boy devoted to his doting mother 

policeman. Hark! did you hear an oath from yon- 
der room? 

Adelaide. Respect a broken-hearted mother's grief, 
And do not interrupt me in my scene. 
Ten years ago my darling disappeared 
(Ten dreary twelvemonths of continuous tears, 
Tears that have left me prematurely aged; 
For I am younger far than I appear). 
Judge of my anguish when to-day I saw 
Stripped to the waist, and fighting like a demon 
With one who, whatsoe'er his humble virtues, 
Was clearly not a gentleman, my son ! 

all. O strange event ! O passing tearful tale ! 

Adelaide. I thank you from the bottom of my heart 
For the reception you have given my woe ; 
And now I ask, where is my wretched son ? 
He must at once come home with me, and quit 
A course of life that cannot be allowed. 

Enter Cashel 

cashel. Policeman : I do yield me to the law. 

lydia. Oh, no. 

Adelaide. My son ! 

cashel. My mother ! Do not kiss me. 

My visage is too sore. 

policeman. The lady hid him. 

This is a regular plant. You cannot be 
Up to that sex. [To Cashel] You come along with me. 

lydia* Fear not, my Cashel: I will bail thee out. 

cashel. Never. I do embrace my doom with joy. 



50 The Admirable Bashville 

With Paradise in Pentonville or Portland 
I shall feel safe: there are no mothers there. 

Adelaide. Ungracious boy — 

cashel. Constable: bear me hence. 

mellish. Oh, let me sweetest reconcilement make 
By calling to thy mind that moving song: — 

[Sings] They say there is no other — 

cashel. Forbear at once, or the next note of music 
That falls upon thine ear shall clang in thunder 
From the last trumpet. 

Adelaide. A disgraceful threat 

To level at this virtuous old man. 

lydia. Oh, Cashel, if thou scorn'st thy mother thus, 
How wilt thou treat thy wife? 

cashel. There spake my fate: 

I knew you would say that. Oh, mothers, mothers, 
Would you but let your wretched sons alone 
Life were worth living! Had I any choice 
In this importunate relationship? 
None. And until that high auspicious day 
When the millennium on an orphaned world 
Shall dawn, and man upon his fellow look, 
Reckless of consanguinity, my mother 
And I within the self-same hemisphere 
Conjointly may not dwell. 

Adelaide. Ungentlemanly I 

cashel. I am no gentleman. I am a criminal, 
Redhanded, baseborn — 

Adelaide. Baseborn ! Who dares say it? 

Thou art the son and heir of Bingley Bumpkin 
FitzAlgernon de Courcy Cashel Byron, 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 51 

Sieur of Park Lane and Overlord of Dorset, 
Who after three months' wedded happiness 
Rashly fordid himself with prussic acid, 
Leaving a tearstained note to testify 
That having sweetly honeymooned with me, 
He now could say, O Death, where is thy sting ? 

policeman. Sir: had I known your quality, this cop 
I had averted; but it is too late. 
The law's above us both. 

Enter Lucian, with an Order in Council 

lucian. Not so, policeman 

I bear a message from The Throne itself 
Of fullest amnesty for Byron's past. 
Nay, more: of Dorset deputy lieutenant 
He is proclaimed. Further, it is decreed, 
In memory of his glorious victory 
Over our country's foes at Islington, 
The flag of England shall for ever bear 
On azure field twelve swanlike spots of white; 
And by an exercise of feudal right 
Too long disused in this anarchic age 
Our sovereign doth confer on him the hand 
Of Miss Carew, Wiltstoken's wealthy heiress. 

[General acclamation. 

policeman. Was anything, sir, said about me? 

lucian. Thy faithful services are not forgot: 
In future call thyself Inspector Smith. 

[Renewed acclamation. 

policeman. I thank you, sir. I thank you, gentle- 
men.- 

lucian. My former opposition, valiant champion, 



52 The Admirable Bashville 

Was based on the supposed discrepancy 
Betwixt your rank and Lydia's. Here's my hand. 

bashville. And I do here unselfishly renounce 
All my pretensions to my lady's favor. [Sensation. 

lydia. What, Bashville! didst thou love me? 

bashville. Madam: yes. 

'Tis said: now let me leave immediately. 

lydia. In taking, Bashville, this most tasteful course 
You are but acting as a gentleman 
In the like case would act. I fully grant 
Your perfect right to make a declaration 
Which flatters me and honors your ambition. 
Prior attachment bids me firmly say 
That whilst my Cashel lives, and polyandry 
Rests foreign to the British social scheme, 
Your love is hopeless; still, your services, 
Made zealous by disinterested passion, 
Would greatly add to my domestic comfort; 
And if 

caspiel. Excuse me. I have other views. 
I've noted in this man such aptitude 
For art and exercise in his defence 
That I prognosticate for him a future 
More glorious than my past. Henceforth I dub him 
The Admirable Bashville, Byron's Novice; 
And to the utmost of my mended fortunes 
Will back him 'gainst the world at ten stone six. 

all. Hail, Byron's Novice, champion that shall be ! 

bashville. Must I renounce my lovely lady's service, 
And mar the face of man? 

cashel. 'Tis Fate's decree. 

For know, rash youth, that in this star crost world 



or, Constancy Unrewarded 53 

Fate drives us all to find our chiefest good 
In what we can, and not in what we would. 

policeman. A post-horn — hark! 

cashel. What noise of wheels is this ? 

Lord Worthington drives upon the scene in his four- 
in-hand, and descends 

Adelaide. Perfidious peer! 

lord worthington. Sweet Adelaide 

Adelaide. Forbear, 

Audacious one : my name is Mrs. Byron. 

lord worthington. Oh, change that title for the 
sweeter one 
Of Lady Worthington. 

cashel. Unhappy man, 

You know not what you do. 

lydia. Nay, 'tis a match 

Of most auspicious promise. Dear Lord Worthington, 
You tear from us our mother-in-law — 

cashel. Ha ! true. 

lydia. — but we will make the sacrifice. She blushes : 
At least she very prettily produces 
Blushing's effect. 

Adelaide. My lord: I do accept you. 

[They embrace. Rejoicings. 

cashel [aside]. It wrings my heart to see my noble 
backer 
Lay waste his future thus. The world's a chessboard, 
And we the merest pawns in fist of Fate. 
[Aloud.] And now, my friends, gentle and simple both, 
Our scene draws to a close. In lawful course 
As Dorset's deputy lieutenant I 



54 The Admirable Bashville 

Do pardon all concerned this afternoon 
In the late gross and brutal exhibition 
Of miscalled sport. 

lydia [throwing herself into his arms]. Your boats 
are burnt at last. 

cashel. This is the face that burnt a thousand boats, 
And ravished Cashel Byron from the ring. 
But to conclude. Let William Paradise 
Devote himself to science, and acquire, 
By studying the player's speech in Hamlet, 
A more refined address. You, Robert Mellish, 
To the Blue Anchor hostelry attend him; 
Assuage his hurts, and bid Bill Richardson 
Limit his access to the fatal tap. 
Now mount we on my backer's four-in-hand, 
And to St. George's Church, whose portico 
Hanover Square shuts off from Conduit Street, 
Repair we all. Strike up the wedding march; 
And, Mellish, let thy melodies trill forth 
Broad o'er the wold as fast we bowl along. 
Give me the post-horn. Loose the flowing rein ; 
And up to London drive with might and main. 

[Exeunt. 



NOTE ON 
MODERN PRIZEFIGHTING 



Note on Modern Prizefighting 

In 1882, when this book was written, prizefighting 
seemed to be dying out. Sparring matches with box- 
ing gloves, under the Queensberry rules, kept pugilism 
faintly alive; but it was not popular, because the pub- 
lic, which cares only for the excitement of a strenuous 
fight, believed then that the boxing glove made spar- 
ring as harmless a contest of pure skill as a fencing 
match with buttoned foils. This delusion was sup- 
ported by the limitation of the sparring match to box- 
ing. In the prize-ring under the old rules a combatant 
might trip, hold, or throw his antagonist; so that each 
round finished either with a knockdown blow, which, 
except when it is really a liedown blow, is much com- 
moner in fiction than it was in the ring, or with a visible 
body-to-body struggle ending in a fall. In a sparring 
match all that happens is that a man with a watch in 
his hand cries out " Time ! " whereupon the two cham- 
pions prosaically stop sparring and sit down for a min- 
ute's rest and refreshment. The unaccustomed and in- 
expert spectator in those days did not appreciate the 
severity of the exertion or the risk of getting hurt: he 
underrated them as ignorantly as he would have over- 
rated the more dramatically obvious terrors of a prize- 
fight. Consequently the interest in the annual sparrings 
for the Queensberry Championships was confined to the 
few amateurs who had some critical knowledge of the 
game of boxing, and to the survivors of the generation 

57 



58 Modern Prizefighting 

for which the fight between Sayers and Heenan had been 
described in The Times as solemnly as the University 
Boat Race. In short; pugilism was out of fashion be- 
cause the police had suppressed the only form of it which 
fascinated the public by its undissembled pugnacity. 

All that was needed to rehabilitate it was the discovery 
that the glove fight is a more trying and dangerous form 
of contest than the old knuckle fight. Nobody knew 
that then: everybody knows it, or ought to know it, 
now. And, accordingly, pugilism is more prosperous 
to-day than it has ever been before. 

How far this result was foreseen by the author of 
the Queensberry Rules, which superseded those of the 
old prize-ring, will probably never be known. There 
is no doubt that they served their immediate turn ad- 
mirably. That turn was, the keeping alive of boxing in 
the teeth of the law against prizefighting. Magistrates 
believed, as the public believed, that when men's knuckles 
were muffled in padded gloves; when they were forbid- 
den to wrestle or hold one another; when the duration 
of a round was fixed by the clock, and the number of 
rounds limited to what seems (to those who have never 
tried) to be easily within the limits of ordinary endur- 
ance ; and when the traditional interval for rest between 
the rounds was doubled, that then indeed violence must 
be checkmated, so that the worst the boxers could do 
was to " spar for points " before three gentlemanly mem- 
bers of the Stock Exchange, who would carefully note 
the said points on an examination paper at the ring side, 
awarding marks only for skill and elegance, and sternly 
discountenancing the claims of brute force. It may be 
that both the author of the rules and the " judges " who 



Modern Prizefighting 59 

administered them in the earlier days really believed all 
this ; f or, as far as I know, the limit of an amateur pugi- 
list's romantic credulity has never yet been reached and 
probably never will. But if so, their good intentions 
were upset by the operation of a single new rule. Thus. 
In the old prize-ring a round had no fixed duration. 
It was terminated by the fall of one of the combatants 
(in practice usually both of them), and was followed, 
by an interval of half a minute for recuperation. The 
practical effect of this was that a combatant could al- 
ways get a respite of half a minute whenever he wanted 
it by pretending to be knocked down : " finding the earth 
the safest place," as the old phrase went. For this the 
Marquess of Queensberry substituted a rule that a round 
with the gloves should last a specified time, usually three 
or four minutes, and that a combatant who did not stand 
up to his opponent continuously during that time (ten 
seconds being allowed for rising in the event of a knock- 
down) lost the battle. That unobtrusively slipped-in 
ten seconds limit has produced the modern glove fight. 
Its practical effect is that a man dazed by a blow or a 
fall for, say, twelve seconds, which would not have mat- 
tered in an old-fashioned fight with its thirty seconds 
interval, 1 has under the Queensberry rules either to lose 

1 In a treatise on boxing by Captain Edgeworth Johnstone, just 
published, I read, "In the days of the prize-ring, fights lasted for 
hours; and the knock-out blow was unknown." This statement 
is a little too sweeping. The blow was known well enough. A 
veteran prizefighter once described to me his first experience of its 
curious effect on the senses. Only, as he had thirty seconds to 
recover in instead of ten, it did not end the battle. The thirty 
seconds made the knock-out so unlikely that the old pugilists re- 
garded it as a rare accident, not worth trying for. The glove fighter 



60 Modern Prizefighting 

or else stagger to his feet in a helpless condition and 
be eagerly battered into insensibility by his opponent 
before he can recover his powers of self-defence. The 
notion that such a battery cannot be inflicted with boxing 
gloves is only entertained by people who have never used 
them or seen them used. I may say that I have 
myself received, in an accident, a blow in the face, in- 
volving two macadamized holes in it, more violent than 
the most formidable pugilist could have given me with 
his bare knuckles. This blow did not stun or disable me 
even momentarily. On the other hand, I have seen a 
man knocked quite silly by a tap from the most luxuri- 
ous sort of boxing glove made, wielded by a quite un- 
athletic literary man sparring for the first time in his 
life. The human jaw, like the human elbow, is provided, 
as every boxer knows, with a " funny bone " ; and the 
pugilist who is lucky enough to jar that funny bone 
with a blow practically has his opponent at his mercy 
for at least ten seconds. Such a blow is called a " knock- 
out." The funny bone and the ten-seconds rule explain 
the development of Queensberry sparring into the mod- 
ern knocking-out match or glove fight. 

This development got its first impulse from the dis- 
covery by sparring competitors that the only way in 



tries for nothing else. Nevertheless knock-outs, and very dramatic 
ones too (Mace by King, for example), did occur in the prize-ring 
from time to time. Captain Edgeworth Johnstone's treatise is 
noteworthy in comparison with the earlier Badminton handbook 
of sparring by Mr. E. B. Michell (one of the Queensberry champions) 
as throwing over the old teaching of prize-ring boxing with mufflers, 
and going in frankly for glove fighting, or, to put it classically, cestus 
boxing. 



Modern Prizefighting 61 

which a boxer, however skilful, could make sure of a 
verdict in his favor, was by knocking his opponent out. 
This will be easily understood by any one who remem- 
bers the pugilistic Bench of those days. The " judges " 
at the competitions were invariably ex-champions: that 
is, men who had themselves won former competitions. 
Now the judicial faculty, if it is not altogether a legal 
fiction, is at all events pretty rare even among men whose 
ordinary pursuits tend to cultivate it, and to train them 
in dispassionateness. Among pugilists it is quite cer- 
tainly very often non-existent. The average pugilist is a 
violent partisan, who seldom witnesses a hot encounter 
without getting much more excited than the combatants 
themselves. Further, he is usually filled with a local 
patriotism which makes him, if a Londoner, deem it a 
duty to disparage a provincial, and, if a provincial, to 
support a provincial at all hazards against a cockney. 
He has, besides, personal favorites on whose success he 
bets wildly. On great occasions like the annual competi- 
tions, he is less judicial and more convivial after dinner 
(when the finals are sparred) than before it. Being sel- 
dom a fine boxer, he often regards skill and style as a 
reflection on his own deficiencies, and applauds all ver- 
dicts given for " game " alone. When he is a technically 
good boxer, he is all the less likely to be a good critic, 
as Providence seldom lavishes two rare gifts on the same 
individual. Even if we take the sanguine and patriotic 
view that when you appoint such a man a judge, and 
thus stop his betting, you may depend on his sense of 
honor and responsibility to neutralize all the other dis- 
qualifications, they are sure to be exhibited most ex- 
tremely by the audience before which he has to deliver 



62 Modern Prizefighting 

his verdict. Now it takes a good deal of strength of 
mind to give an unpopular verdict; and this strength of 
mind is not necessarily associated with the bodily hardi- 
hood of the champion boxer. Consequently, when the 
strength of mind is not forthcoming, the audience be- 
comes the judge, and the popular competitor gets the 
verdict. And the shortest way to the heart of a big 
audience is to stick to your man; stop his blows bravely 
with your nose and return them with interest ; cover your- 
self and him with your own gore; and outlast him in a 
hearty punching match. 

It was under these circumstances that the competitors 
for sparring championships concluded that they had 
better decide the bouts themselves by knocking their 
opponents out, and waste no time in cultivating a skill 
and style for which they got little credit, and which 
actually set some of the judges against them. The pub- 
lic instantly began to take an interest in the sport. And 
so, by a pretty rapid evolution, the dexterities which the 
boxing glove and the Queensberry rules were supposed 
to substitute for the old brutalities of Sayers and Heenan 
were really abolished by them. 

Let me describe the process as I saw it myself. Twen- 
ty years ago a poet friend of mine, who, like all 
poets, delighted in combats, insisted on my sharing his 
interest in pugilism, and took me about to all the box- 
ing competitions of the day. I was nothing loth; for, 
my own share of original sin apart, any one with a sense 
of comedy must find the arts of self-defence delightful 
(for a time) through their pedantry, their quackery, and 
their action and reaction between amateur romantic illu- 
sion and professional eye to business. 



Modern Prizefighting 63 

The fencing world, as Moliere well knew, is perhaps 
a more exquisite example of a fool's paradise than the 
boxing world; but it is too restricted and expensive to 
allow play for popular character in a non-duelling coun- 
try, as the boxing world (formerly called quite appro- 
priately " the Fancy ") does. At all events, it was the 
boxing world that came under my notice; and as I was 
amused and sceptically observant, whilst the true ama- 
teurs about me were, for the most part, merely excited 
and duped, my evidence may have a certain value when 
the question comes up again for legislative considera- 
tion, as it assuredly will some day. 

The first competitions I attended were at the begin- 
ning of the eighties, at Lillie Bridge, for the Queens- 
berry championships. There were but few competitors, 
including a fair number of gentlemen; and the style of 
boxing aimed at was the " science " bequeathed from 
the old prize-ring by Ned Donnelly, a pupil of Nat 
Langham. Langham had once defeated Sayers, and 
thereby taught him the tactics by which he defeated 
Heenan. There was as yet no special technique of 
glove fighting: the traditions and influence of the old 
ring were unquestioned and supreme; and they dis- 
tinctly made for brains, skill, quickness, and mobility, 
as against brute violence, not at all on moral grounds, 
but because experience had proved that giants did not 
succeed in the ring under the old rules, and that crafty 
middle-weights did. 

This did not last long. The spectators did not want 
to see skill defeating violence: they wanted to see vio- 
lence drawing blood and pounding its way to a savage 
and exciting victory in the shortest possible time (the 



64 Modern Prizefighting 

old prizefight usually dragged on for hours, and was 
ended by exhaustion rather than by victory). So did 
most of the judges. And the public and the judges 
naturally had their wish; for the competitors, as I have 
already explained, soon discovered that the only way to 
make sure of a favorable verdict was to " knock out " 
their adversary. All pretence of sparring " for points " : 
that is, for marks on an examination paper filled up by 
the judges, and representing nothing but impracticable 
academic pedantry in its last ditch, was dropped; and 
the competitions became frank fights, with abundance of 
blood drawn, and " knock-outs " always imminent. Need- 
less to add, the glove fight soon began to pay. The 
select and thinly attended spars on the turf at Lillie 
Bridge gave way to crowded exhibitions on the hard 
boards of St. James's Hall. These were organized by 
the Boxing Association; and to them the provinces, 
notably Birmingham, sent up a new race of boxers whose 
sole aim was to knock their opponent insensible by a 
right-hand blow on the jaw, knowing well that no Birm- 
ingham man could depend on a verdict before a London 
audience for any less undeniable achievement. 

The final step was taken by an American pugilist. 
He threw off the last shred of the old hypocrisy of the 
gloved hand by challenging the whole world to produce 
a man who could stand before him for a specified time 
without being knocked out. His brief but glorious ca- 
reer completely re-established pugilism by giving a 
world-wide advertisement to the fact that the boxing 
glove spares nothing but the public conscience, and that 
as much ferocity, bloodshed, pain, and risk of serious 
injury or death can be enjoyed at a glove fight as at an 



Modern Prizefighting 65 

old-fashioned prizefight, whilst the strain on the com- 
batants is much greater. It is true that these horrors 
are greatly exaggerated by the popular imagination, and 
that if boxing were really as dangerous as bicycling, a 
good many of its heroes would give it up from simple 
fright; but this only means that there is a maximum of 
damage to the spectator by demoralization, combined 
with the minimum of deterrent risk to the poor scrap- 
per in the ring. 

Poor scrapper, though, is hardly the word for a mod- 
ern fashionable American pugilist. To him the exploits 
of Cashel Byron will seem ludicrously obscure and low- 
lived. The contests in which he engages are like 
Handel Festivals: they take place in huge halls before 
enormous audiences, with cinematographs hard at work 
recording the scene for reproduction in London and 
elsewhere. The combatants divide thousands of dollars 
of gate-money between them: indeed, if an impecunious 
English curate were to go to America and challenge the 
premier pugilist, the spectacle of a match between the 
Church and the Ring would attract a colossal crowd; 
and the loser's share of the gate would be a fortune to 
a curate — assuming that the curate would be the loser, 
which is by no means a foregone conclusion. At all 
events, it would be well worth a bruise or two. So my 
story of the Agricultural Hall, where William Paradise 
sparred for half a guinea, and Cashel Byron stood out 
for ten guineas, is no doubt read by the profession in 
America with amused contempt. In 1882 it was, like 
most of my conceptions, a daring anticipation of coming 
social developments, though to-day it seems as far out 
of date as Slender pulling Sackerson's chain. 



66 Modern Prizefighting 

Of these latter-day commercial developments of glove 
fighting I know nothing beyond what I gather from the 
newspapers. The banging matches of the eighties, in 
which not one competitor in twenty either exhibited 
artistic skill, or, in his efforts to knock out his adversary, 
succeeded in anything but tiring and disappointing him- 
self, were for the most part tedious beyond human en- 
durance. When, after wading through Boxiana and 
the files of Bell's Life at the British Museum, I had 
written Cashel Byron's Profession, I found I had ex- 
hausted the comedy of the subject; and as a game of 
patience or solitaire was decidedly superior to an aver- 
age spar for a championship in point of excitement, I 
went no more to the competitions. Since then six or 
seven generations of boxers have passed into peaceful 
pursuits ; and I have no doubt that my experience is in 
some respects out of date. The National Sporting Club 
has arisen; and though I have never attended its re- 
unions, I take its record of three pugilists slain as prov- 
ing and enormous multiplication of contests, since such 
accidents are very rare, and in fact do not happen to 
reasonably healthy men. I am prepared to admit also 
that the disappearance of the old prize-ring technique 
must by this time have been compensated by the impor- 
tation from America of a new glove-fighting technique; 
for even in a knocking-out match, brains will try conclu- 
sions with brawn, and finally establish a standard of 
skill; but I notice that in the leading contests in Amer- 
ica luck seems to be on the side of brawn, and brain 
frequently finishes in a state of concussion, a loser after 
performing miracles of " science." I use the word 
luck advisedly; for one of the fascinations of boxing 



Modern Prizefighting 67 

to the gambler (who is the main pillar of the sporting 
world) is that it is a game of hardihood, pugnacity and 
skill, all at the mercy of chance. The knock-out itself 
is a pure chance. I have seen two powerful laborers 
batter one another's jaws with all their might for sev- 
eral rounds apparently without giving one another as 
much as a toothache. And I have seen a winning pu- 
gilist collapse at a trifling knock landed by a fluke at 
the fatal angle. I once asked an ancient prizefighter 
what a knock-out was like when it did happen. He was 
a man of limited descriptive powers; so he simply 
pointed to the heavens and said, " Up in a balloon. " 
An amateur pugilist, with greater command of language, 
told me that " all the milk in his head suddenly boiled 
over." I am aware that some modern glove fighters of 
the American school profess to have reduced the knock- 
out to a science. But the results of the leading Amer- 
ican combats conclusively discredit the pretension. 
When a boxer so superior to his opponent in skill as to 
be able practically to hit him where he pleases not only 
fails to knock him out, but finally gets knocked out him- 
self, it is clear that the phenomenon is as complete a 
mystery pugilistically as it is physiologically, though 
every pugilist and every doctor may pretend to under- 
stand it. It is only fair to add that it has not been 
proved that any permanent injury to the brain results 
from it. In any case the brain, as English society is at 
present constituted, can hardly be considered a vital or- 
gan. 

This, to the best of my knowledge, is the technical 
history 'of the modern revival of pugilism. It is only 
one more example of the fact that legislators, like other 



68 Modern Prizefighting 

people, must learn their business by their own mistakes, 
and that the first attempts to suppress an evil by law 
generally intensify it. Prizefighting, though often con- 
nived at, was never legal. Even in its palmiest days 
prizefights were banished from certain counties by hos- 
tile magistrates, just as they have been driven from the 
United States and England to Belgium on certain oc- 
casions in our own time. But as the exercise of spar- 
ring, conducted by a couple of gentlemen with boxing 
gloves on, was regarded as part of a manly physical 
education, a convention grew up by which it became 
practically legal to make a citizen's nose bleed by a 
punch from the gloved fist, and illegal to do the same 
thing with the naked knuckles. A code of glove-fighting 
rules was drawn up by a prominent patron of pugilism ; 
and this code was practically legalized by the fact that 
even when a death resulted from a contest under these 
rules the accessaries were not punished. No question 
was raised as to whether the principals were paid to 
fight for the amusement of the spectators, or whether a 
prize for the winner was provided in stakes, share of 
the gate, or a belt with the title of champion. These, 
the true criteria of prizefighting, were ignored; and 
the sole issue raised was whether the famous dictum of 
Dr. Watts, " Your little hands were never made, etc./' 
had been duly considered by providing the said little 
hands with a larger hitting surface, a longer range, and 
four ounces extra weight. 

In short, then, what has happened has been the vir- 
tual legalization of prizefighting under cover of the box- 
ing glove. And this is exactly what public opinion 
desires. We do not like fighting; but we like looking on 



Modern Prizefighting 69 

at fights: therefore we require a law which will punish 
the prizefighter if he hits us, and secure us the pro- 
tection of the police whilst we sit in a comfortable hall 
and watch him hitting another prizefighter. And that 
is just the law we have got at present. 

Thus Cashel Byron's plea for a share of the legal 
toleration accorded to the vivisector has been virtually 
granted since he made it. The legalization of cruelty 
to domestic animals under cover of the anesthetic is only 
the extreme instance of the same social phenomenon as 
the legalization of prizefighting under cover of the box- 
ing glove. The same passion explains the fascination 
of both practices; and in both, the professors — pugilists 
and physiologists alike — have to persuade the Home 
Office that their pursuits are painless and beneficial. 
But there is also between them the remarkable difference 
that the pugilist, who has to suffer as much as he in- 
flicts, wants his work to be as painless and harmless 
as possible whilst persuading the public that it is thrill- 
ingly dangerous and destructive, whilst the vivisector 
wants to enjoy a total exemption from humane restric- 
tions in his laboratory whilst persuading the public that 
pain is unknown there. Consequently the vivisector is 
not only crueller than the prizefighter, but, through the 
pressure of public opinion, a much more resolute and 
uncompromising liar. For this no one but a Pharisee 
will single him out for special blame. All public men 
lie, as a matter of good taste, on subjects which are con- 
sidered serious (in England a serious occasion means 
simply an occasion on which nobody tells the truth) ; 
and however illogical or capricious the point of honor 
may be in man, it is too absurd to assume that the doc- 



70 Modern Prizefighting 

tors who, from among innumerable methods of research, 
select that of tormenting animals hideously, will hesi- 
tate to come on a platform and tell a soothing fib to 
prevent the public from punishing them. No criminal 
is expected to plead guilty, or to refrain from pleading 
not guilty with all the plausibility at his command. In 
prizefighting such mendacity is not necessary: on the 
contrary, if a famous pugilist were to assure the public 
that a blow delivered with a boxing glove could do no 
injury and cause no pain, and the public believed him, 
the sport would instantly lose its following. It is the 
prizefighter's interest to abolish the real cruelties of the 
ring and to exaggerate the imaginary cruelties of it. 
It is the vivisector's interest to refine upon the cruelties 
of the laboratory, whilst persuading the public that his 
victims pass into a delicious euthanasia and leave be- 
hind them a row of bottles containing infallible cures 
for all the diseases. Just so, too, does the trainer of per- 
forming animals assure us that his dogs and cats and 
elephants and lions are taught their senseless feats by 
pure kindness. 

The public, as Julius Caesar remarked nearly 2000 
years ago, believes on the whole, just what it wants to 
believe. The laboring masses do not believe the false 
excuses of the vivisector, because they know that the 
vivisector experiments on hospital patients; and the 
masses belong to the hospital patient class. The well- 
to-do people who do not go to hospitals, and who think 
they benefit by the experiments made there, believe the 
vivisectors' excuses, and angrily abuse and denounce the 
anti-vivisectors. The people who " love animals/' who 
keep pets, and stick pins through butterflies, support 



Modern Prizefighting 71 

the performing dog people, and are sure that kindness 
will teach a horse to waltz. And the people who enjoy 
a fight will persuade themselves that boxing gloves do 
not hurt, and that sparring is an exercise which teaches 
self-control and exercises all the muscles in the body 
more efficiently than any other. 

My own view of prizefighting may be gathered from 
Cashel Byron's Profession, and from the play written 
by me more than ten years later, entitled Mrs. Warren's 
Profession. As long as society is so organized that the 
destitute athlete and the destitute beauty are forced to 
choose between underpaid drudgery as industrial pro- 
ducers, and comparative self-$espect, plenty, and popu- 
larity as prizefighters and mercenary brides, licit or 
illicit, it is idle to affect virtuous indignation at their 
expense. The word prostitute should either not be 
used at all, or else applied impartially to all persons 
who do things for money that they would not do if they 
had any other assured means of livelihood. The evil 
caused by the prostitution of the Press and the Pulpit 
is so gigantic that the prostitution of the prize-ring, 
which at least makes no serious moral pretensions, is 
comparatively negligible by comparison. Let us not 
forget, however, that the throwing of a hard word such 
as prostitution does not help the persons thus vituperated 
out of their difficulty. If the soldier and gladiator fight 
for money, if men and women marry for money, if the 
journalist and novelist write for money, and the parson 
preaches for money, it must be remembered that it is 
an exceedingly difficult and doubtful thing for an in- 
dividual to set up his own scruples or fancies (he cannot 
himself be sure which they are) against the demand of 



72 Modern Prizefighting 

the community when it says, Do thus and thus, or starve. 
It was easy for Ruskin to lay down the rule of dying 
rather than doing unjustly; but death is a plain thing: 
justice a very obscure thing. How is an ordinary man 
to draw the line between right and wrong otherwise 
than by accepting public opinion on the subject; and 
what more conclusive expression of sincere public opin- 
ion can there be than market demand? Even when we 
repudiate that and fall back on our private judgment, 
the matter gathers doubt instead of clearness. The 
popular notion of morality and piety is to simply beg 
all the most important questions in life for other peo- 
ple; but when these questions come home to ourselves, 
we suddenly discover that the devil's advocate has a 
stronger case than we thought: we remember that the 
way of righteousness or death was the way of the In- 
quisition; that hell is paved, not with bad intentions, 
but with good ones; that the deeper seers have sug- 
gested that the way to save your soul is perhaps to give 
it away, casting your spiritual bread on the waters, so 
to speak. No doubt, if you are a man of genius, a 
Ruskin or an Ibsen, you can divine your way and finally 
force your passage. If you have the conceit of fanat- 
icism you can die a martyr like Charles I. If you are 
a criminal, or a gentleman of independent means, you 
can leave society out of the question and prey on it. 
But if you are an ordinary person you take your bread 
as it comes to you, doing whatever you can make most 
money by doing. And you are really shewing your- 
self a disciplined citizen and acting with perfect social 
propriety in so doing. Society may be, and generally 
is, grossly wrong in its offer to you; and you may be, 



Modern Prizefighting 73 

and generally are, grossly wrong in supporting the 
existing political structure; but this only means, to the 
successful modern prizefighter, that he must reform 
society before he can reform himself. A conclusion 
which I recommend to the consideration of those foolish 
misers of personal righteousness who think they can dis- 
pose of social problems by bidding reformers of society 
reform themselves first. 

Practically, then, the question raised is whether fight- 
ing with gloves shall be brought, like cockfighting, bear- 
baiting, and gloveless fist fighting, explicitly under the 
ban of the law. I do not propose to argue that ques- 
tion out here. But of two things I am certain. First, 
that glove fighting is quite as fierce a sport as fist fight- 
ing. Second, that if an application were made to the 
Borough Council of which I am a member, to hire the 
Town Hall for a boxing competition, I should vote 
against the applicants. 

This second point being evidently the practical one, 
I had better give my reason. Exhibition pugilism is 
essentially a branch of Art: that is to say, it acts and 
attracts by propagating feeling. The feeling it propa- 
gates is pugnacity. Sense of danger, dread of danger, 
impulse to batter and destroy what threatens and op- 
poses, triumphant delight in succeeding: this is pug- 
nacity, the great adversary of the social impulse to live 
and let live; to establish our rights by shouldering our 
share of the social burden; to face and examine danger 
instead of striking at it; to understand everything to 
the point of pardoning (and righting) everything; to 
conclude' an amnesty with Nature wide enough to in- 
clude even those we know the worst of: namely, our- 



74 Modern Prizefighting 

selves. If two men quarrelled, and asked the Borough 
Council to lend them a room to fight it out in with their 
fists, on the ground that a few minutes' hearty punching 
of one another's heads would work off their bad blood 
and leave them better friends, each desiring, not victory, 
but satisfaction, I am not sure that I should not vote 
for compliance. But if a syndicate of showmen came 
and said, Here we have two men who have no quarrel, 
but who will, if you pay them, fight before your con- 
stituency and thereby make a great propaganda of pug- 
nacity in it, sharing the profits with us and with you, 
I should indignantly oppose the proposition. And if the 
majority were against me, I should try to persuade them 
to at least impose the condition that the fight should be 
with naked fists under the old rules, so that the com- 
batants should, like Savers and Langham, depend on 
bunging up each other's eyes rather than, like the mod- 
ern knocker-out, giving one another concussion of the 
brain. 

I may add, finally, that the present halting between 
the legal toleration and suppression of commercial pu- 
gilism is much worse than the extreme of either, be- 
cause it takes away the healthy publicity and sense of 
responsibility which legality and respectability give, 
without suppressing the blackguardism which finds its 
opportunity in shady pursuits. I use the term com- 
mercial advisedly. Put a stop to boxing for money; 
and pugilism will give society no further trouble. 

London, 1901. 



^GV 13 1918 



LBFe'U 



THE ADMIRABLE 
BASHVILLE 

OR, CONSTANCY UNREWARDED 

BEING THE NOVEL OF CASHEL BYRON'S 
PROFESSION DONE INTO A STAGE PLAY 
IN THREE ACTS, AND IN BLANK VERSE. 
WITH A NOTE ON MODERN PRIZE FIGHTING 

By 

BERNARD SHAW 




NEW YORK 

BRENTANO'S 

1913 

Price 40 cents net 



WORKS OF 

BERNARD SHAW 

Dramatic Opinions and Essays. 2 vols. Net, $2.50 

Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant. 2 vols. Net, $2.50 

John Bull's Other Island and Major Barbara. 

Net 9 $1.50 

Man and Superman ..»».. Net, $1.25 

Three Plays for Puritans . . . * . Net, $1.25 

The Doctor's Dilemma, Getting Married, and 

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The Quintessence of Ibsenism . . . $1.00 

Cashel Byron's Profession .... $1.25 

An Unsocial Socialist ...... $1.25 

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The Perfect Wagnerite $1.25 

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The Admirable Bashville : A Play . . Net, .50 

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THREE PLAYS 

BY BRIEUX 

(Member of the French Academy) 

MATERNITY 

DAMAGED GOODS 

THE THREE DAUGHTERS OF 

MONSIEUR DUPONT 

WITH PREFACE BY BERNARD SHAW 
Translated into English 

By Mrs. BERNARD SHAW, ST. JOHN HANKIN 
and JOHN POLLOCK 

l2mo. Cloth, price $ 1 .50 net 



„ i. 1 ? * at kmd of c °medy," writes BERNARD SHAW, 
which is so true to life that we have to call it tragi-comedy, 
and which is not only an entertainment but a history and a 
criticism of contemporary morals, BRIEUX is incomparably 
the greatest writer France has produced since Moliere." 

The three plays in this volume are a first instalment into 
fcnglish of the work of a man who has been admitted into the 
trench Academy for his splendid achievements, and who is 
recognized by the best thinkers in Europe as one of the pro- 
roundest moral forces expressing itself as literature to-day. 

No earnest man or woman can read these plays without 
being deeply moved and deeply touched. One of the plays 
was read by Brieux himself, at the special invitation of the 
pastor, from the pulpit of a church in Geneva. 

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WIDOWERS* HOUSES 

THE PHILANDERER 

MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION 

ARMS AND THE MAN 

CANDIDA 

YOU NEVER CAN TELL 

THE ADMIRABLE BASHVILLE 

THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE 

C/ESAR AND CLEOPATRA 

CAPTAIN BRASSBOUND'S CONVERSION 

MAN AND SUPERMAN 

JOHN BULL'S OTHER ISLAND 

MAJOR BARBARA 

THE MAN OF DESTINY, AND HOW HE 

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THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA 
GETTING MARRIED 
THE SHEWING-UP OF BLANCO POSNET 
PRESS CUTTINGS 

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